The Folklore of Discworld

its neck. The conventions of heraldry do not permit the sex of the beasts to be clearly indicated, but in view of the tale we can safely state that at least one of them is female. The legend is also commemorated by eight hippo statues on the city’s Brass Bridge, facing out to sea. It is said that if danger ever threatens the city they will run away.
    Some people have expressed doubts over this ancient and uplifting tradition. Why and how, they ask, would a she-hippo suckle human babies? And how could they thrive on this eccentric diet? Did they but know it, these doubters could find a tale on Earth provingthat such things are perfectly possible. It tells of twins, Romulus and Remus, who were the sons of Mars the God of War and a human princess. Their evil great-uncle, having just usurped his brother’s throne, seized the boys and threw them into the Tiber, for fear they might grow up to challenge him. 11 But the river washed them safely to the bank, where a she-wolf fed them with her milk until a kindly shepherd found them. Later, they built the city of Rome. Considering what wolves normally eat, this tale is even more wondrous than that of the hippo, but the Romans had no difficulty in believing it. And, naturally, making a statue about it.
    The second legend is not told quite so often by the citizens of Ankh-Morpork, but is surprisingly widespread in other towns. It is said that way back in the fogs of time there was once a great flood sent by the gods, and that a group of wise men survived by building a huge boat into which they crammed two of every type of animal then existing on the Disc. After a few weeks the combined manure was beginning to weigh the boat low in the water, so – the story runs – they tipped it over the side and called the heap Ankh-Morpork. Anybody who doubts the truth of this should go and stand on one of the bridges over the Ankh, preferably on a warm day, and breathe deep.
S UNKEN C ITIES AND V ANISHING I SLANDS
    There is also the legend of the Lost City, the City-before-the-City. It is not an uncommon tale – indeed, there are variants in all the cities of the Sto Plains – but hardly anyone takes it seriously.
    There had been a city once, in the mists of pre-history – bigger than Ankh-Morpork, if that were possible. And the inhabitants had done something , some sort of unspeakable crime not justagainst Mankind or the gods but against the very nature of the universe itself, which had been so dreadful that it had sunk beneath the sea one stormy night. Only a few people had survived to carry to the barbarian peoples in the less advanced parts of the Disc all the arts and crafts of civilization. [ Moving Pictures ]
    According to the dreaded grimoire Necrotelecomnicon , there had been a hill at the edge of the city:
    … and in that hill, it is said, a Door out of the World was found, and people of the City watched what was Seen therein, knowing not that Dread waited between the universes … for Others found the gate of the Holy Wood and fell upon the world, and in one nighte All Manner of Madnesse befell, and Chaos prevailed, and the Citie sank beneath the Sea, and all became one with the fishes and the lobsters, save for a few who fled.
    The hill is still there, on a lonely stretch of coast about thirty miles from Ankh-Morpork. It is not very high, yet high enough to be visible for miles, standing out from the wind-blown sand dunes all around. It is covered with wretched scrubby trees. People call it Holy Wood. And they say that if you stand on the beach at Holy Wood on a stormy night, you can still hear the bells of old temples ringing under the sea. The events chronicled in Moving Pictures would suggest that there is after all rather more than a grain of truth in these old tales.
    There are many, many legends about sunken cities on Earth, where islands bob up and down like the chorus in HMS Pinafore . The oldest on record was told by the Greek philosopher Plato about 2,400 years ago, and according to him it was true, and had happened some 9,000 years before that . And it was not just one city that had sunk, but the whole large island of Atlantis – rich, civilized, withmany mighty cities, harbours and palaces. There, men had at first been wise and virtuous, but in time they became obsessed with wealth and power, so the gods destroyed their land in a single day and night.
    There occurred portentous earthquakes and floods, and one grievous day and night befell them when the whole